A long-awaited inquiry into the Covid pandemic is set to become the most expensive in history — costing an estimated £136,907 a day over the last year.

Taxpayers forked out almost £70million in the last financial year and the probe is not expected to report its findings until the end of 2026, so the final cost is likely be around £200million.

That would eclipse the £195million spent on the 12-year probe into the deaths of 13 people on Bloody Sunday.

More than half the £94million that has already been spent on the Covid inquiry, chaired by retired Appeal Court judge Baroness Hallett, has gone on legal costs.

A further £100,000 a day has been spent on a team of 265 civil servants who are working full-time to provide the inquiry with documents and government witnesses, according to separate figures published this week.

The long-awaited Covid inquiry is chaired by retired Appeal Court judge Baroness Hallett

Professor Carl Heneghan, from the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, who gave evidence to the inquiry, told The Times: 'This is an exorbitant amount of money but the entire way the inquiry has been structured is designed to be expensive.

'It is setting itself to take sides with a legalistic approach which is not the best way to learn lessons. It would be much cheaper and more effective if it actually took the approach of medicine and said we accept that errors were made — and look at how we should do things differently in future.'

Lord Saville of Newdigate, who carried out the Bloody Sunday inquiry, defended the high cost. 'It has got to be thorough and it has got to be fair,' he said. 'That takes time and expertise which is expensive.'

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which compiled the cost analysis, said: 'The Covid inquiry should be short, sharp and decisive, not an expensive political pantomime.' 

A spokesman for the Covid inquiry said: 'It was the government’s decision to set up this public inquiry with very broad terms of reference. The inquiry’s scope is exceptionally wide and touches on the work of many government departments in all four nations of the UK. It is obliged to gather evidence from many organisations, especially those at the centre of responding to the pandemic.'

A government spokesman said: 'To ensure transparency the government is committed to publishing its costs responding to the inquiry. This is in line with the inquiry’s own quarterly financial reports.'